Starlink is now available to residents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX adds the company to its rollout roster for the Middle-East, according to details posted on its website.
The UAE along with Kuwait joined countries such Oman, Yemen, Qatar and Bahrain to have official access to the satellite-delivered internet service on Wednesday.
Starlink provides what Musk described as "thousands of satellites providing low latency high speed internet around the world". The service was designed for sparsely populated regions with a focus on rural areas where fibre optic cable and cellular tower (which traditionally provide internet) infrastructure.
This also applies to disaster prone and war torn areas where key infrastructure for internet provision can get damaged with little recourse for speedy repair and redeployment.
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With UAE being used as a military base by the US in its war against Iran, the country has been targeted for attack by Iran, with 1,700 drones and 300 ballistic missiles launched at the country as per reports. Kuwait has also weathered attacks for similar reasons making both countries viable markets for Starlink.
Starlink offers UAE residents high-speed home internet service at 230 Dirhams per month, with a one-time hardware cost of 1,099 Dirham. It comes in two key price plans, with the first being 'Residential Lite' for unlimited usage at 230 Dirhams per month and 'Residential' which provides the maximum speed available along with unlimited data usage for 300 Dirhams.
Residents can also access roaming services in two separate plans, with the unlimited roaming data version at 370 Dirhams per month and the 100 GB data pack version for 190 Dirhams per month.
The firm also offers a seperate plan for business retailing at 248 Dirhams a month.
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